The Yack Report: Rainy Weather Fishing

Sonny Mitchel is a customer at Sarge’s Bait and Tackle shop where I work. Last weekend he came into the shop and said he was having trouble catching Stripers on the flats. I gave him some inlet and told him what to buy and sent him to the flats. He struck out…

I promised to take him out and show him the ropes, today was that day. I did not know this guy at all, he said he had a boat so we decided to go fishing. I did not know what to expect… I was relieved and pleased to find a brand new 17′ Key West with a 70 hp Yamaha 4 stoke waiting at the ramp when I arrived.

We loaded gear and launched from Charlestown around 3 pm… at 3:05 Sonny says “take the wheel…you’re the captain today!” I was blessed to drive such a nice boat all day. The run to the flats was quick at 28 mph across and light chop. Grey skies and east winds had me excited for a good bite… rolled up to my first spot and came up empty. I moved to the other side of the flats and it was game on!

From the first cast to the last! We stayed in that area for about 2 hours, We were catching about as fast as possible. Sonny caught on well, I handed him a light rod with a lure tied on it and he caught fast on it most of the day. Some nicer fish were in the mix but no big fish.

We had around 65 or 70 Rockfish with the largest being 27″ and quite a few mid-twenties fish. I had 2 fish bite the lure at the same time, and caught them both! We left that area and went looking for some bigger fish… and came up empty. I returned to where the hot bite was and the current was slacking and the fish seemed to have moved.

We ended up catching a few more and raced back to the ramp just ahead of the setting sun… Way cool Day…I made a new friend, got to captain a beautiful boat and caught fish like Crazy! How good can it get?

I don’t think Sonny will be the same after today. We plan to fish together again soon!

Sonny Mitchel with one of the better fish we caught today. We had a good number of 25″ fish on plugs.

This one was 27″ the best of the day. We did find some better fish but could not get them to commit to the surface plugs. The lure in the fish’s mouth is an old, 6″ jointed, G-finish Rebel. This lure was discontinued in the 1990’s. On the flats few things catch better. When we found out they were being discontinued Christopher Brown and I bought 24 of them… I have two left we used them most of the day today. Nothing in my tackle box caught better

2 fish one lure! They were thrashing around on the surface making a big commotion… I thought I had Moby for a minute. This is one of two “Last of the Blue Rebels”… They have bit the eyes off it, bent the wire eyelets and yanked the hooks out of the back of the plug … I have tinkered them up more than once and just put new hooks on them yesterday thinking that they might be right for today. I love this plugs for fishing the flats. My old stand-by for many years on the flats.